A report to the November council meeting said cost shifting impacted the council’s available funds to deliver quality services and infrastructure, and its operating performance.

Areas of cost shifting range from community safety to the waste levy, Crown reserve maintenance and asset transfers from Roads and Maritime Services.

Asset transfers include John Oxley Drive and Nancy Bird Walton Drive.

Cr Peter Alley said the situation was that for decades the state government and federal government basically used and abused councils by shifting further tasks their way.

He said councils were responsible for a much wider range of activities than the traditional roads, rates and rubbish, and that cost money.

Those areas are ongoing.

Deputy mayor Cr Lisa Intemann said cost shifting was a significant and serious situation for all councils.

Cost shifting occurs when the responsibility for, or the costs of, providing a service, concession, asset or regulatory function are shifted from a higher level of government to a lower level of government without  corresponding funding or the granting of corresponding and adequate revenue raising capacity.

The council’s general manager has been asked to provided a revised waste levy figure for 2017-18 in an updated cost shifting table at the February 2018 council meeting.

The format of future reports will separate federal government cost shifting impacts from state government impacts.

A report about the financial impact of cost shifting in 12 months will contain at least one detailed example of a cost shifting exercise involving council-funded infrastructure that relates to government schools, hospitals, public housing or universities.

The general manager was also asked to write to eight politicians and Local Government NSW enclosing a full copy of the financial impact of cost shifting report and request their active assistance in removing this financial burden on the community.

The council report said Local Government NSW coordinated a cost shifting survey of all NSW councils to establish the cost shifting impact by the Australian and NSW governments to local government. ​